On the aversion to acronyms
A couple of weeks ago I was online at the Sloan-C conference on Emerging Technologies for Online learning. It seems as though MOOCs were the thing for this conference, and in specific the different varieties of MOOCs. That said, itseems like many acronyms were floating around both for non-MOOCs, and MOOC-like things such as SPOC, MOLE, BOOC and so on. I've written about the sillyness of acronyms before on this blog, and those following me on twitter probably saw my virtual eye-rolling when I was live-tweeting sessions. Don't get me wrong, I did like acronyms earlier in life, but mostly as a way to play with language. Now, in this environment, acronyms seem like a way to get you noticed, or to get you a paper that others may cite in their papers so you can get some research-cred. Maybe I am a cynic, but I find that acronyms, in these cases, do obfiscate what's happening or trying to happen. For instance, I've written before about SPOC (small private online course). ...